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Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Why I Write about Texas Rangers by Margaret Daley

I have written three books in the Lone Star Justice Series for Love Inspired Suspense. The last one, Texas Ranger Showdown, will be out in April 2018. I also wrote four book in my Abingdon series called the Men of the Texas Ranger. What a group!

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the baseball team in Dallas called the Texas Rangers. I’m talking about the oldest state organization of law enforcement officers. Sam Austin formed the first version of the Texas Rangers in 1823. The word “rangers” was coined because these men ranged over the land they protected and guarded.

Through the early years the Texas Rangers, one of the main duties of the group was to protect the people against Indians. Then after the Civil War in 1874 the organization was divided into six companies with 75 men and usually a captain. Their duties were partly a soldier and partly a police officer. By the 1900s the organization totally focused on enforcing the law. A Texas Ranger was called in when the case was too risky for the local agency.

Today there are 172 Texas Rangers who served the state in many investigative capacities. They are part of the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Texas Rangers’ headquarters is in Austin. There are six companies: Company “A” headquartered in Houston, Company “B” in Garland, Company “C” in Lubbock, Company “D” in Weslaco, Company “E” in El Paso, and Company “F” in Waco/San Antonio. The companies were adjusted recently.

The Texas Rangers handle the usual kind of cases like murder, assault, robbery and kidnapping, but they are also tasked with investigating threats against the governor and other state and federal officials. I used some of these crimes for the stories in my series: Lone Star Justice (High-Risk Reunion and Lone Star Christmas Rescue).

Margaret Daley, a USA Today’s Bestselling author of over a hundred books (five million plus sold worldwide), has been married for over forty-six years and is a firm believer in romance and love. When she isn’t traveling, she’s writing love stories, often with a suspense thread and corralling her three cats that think they rule her household. To find out more about Margaret visit her website at http://www.margaretdaley.com.

5 comments:

So interesting. I love history and have read all about Austin and his trips to Mexico but didn't realize he started the first version of the Texas Rangers. He was in Saltillo, Coahuila when my great grandfather Martinez lived there. I can imagine it was big news back then.